DawnWatch: Inside Edition covers dogs of New Orleans 2/14/07
February 14th, 2007 5:19 pm by Kelly Garbato———- Forwarded message ———-
From: DawnWatch – news [at] dawnwatch.com
Date: Feb 14, 2007 4:21 PM
Subject: DawnWatch: Inside Edition covers dogs of New Orleans 2/14/07
On Valentine’s Day, Wednesday February 15, Inside Edition is airing a story about dogs in New Orleans. I will paste the web promo below.
Some people may still be able to catch the story. Go to www.insideedition.com/wheretowatch/ to find out when and on what station you can watch it.
Please thank the show for its attention to this issue. Positive Feedback for animal friendly coverage encourages more of it.
Inside Edition takes comments at iemail [at] kingworld.com
I send thanks to Lynn Morrison for making sure we knew about the story.
Here is the Inside Edition Web Story on the issue:
After the Storm, Dogs Left to Fend For Themselves
ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 2/14/2007
(Photos on this page…)Although the city of New Orleans is only half it’s pre-Katrina population, the number of dogs has remained high. As some New Orleans homes lie empty and abandoned, they are still providing shelter for many four-legged victims of the disaster.
Even 18 months after Katrina, many pets who were separated from their owners by the storm, are now living wild.
Pet-lover Robin Beaulieu runs an organization called Animal Rescue New Orleans. She spends her days and often her nights too, touring the city in her converted school bus, rounding up strays, sometimes using humane traps to catch them. Often the dogs are mangy and scared.
“I would say several thousand former pets are on the streets still today,” Robin told Inside Edition.
Robin worries over the fate of pets that have had to live wild in the 18 months since Katrina. “It’s very difficult for a domesticated animal to fend for itself,” Robin said.
One reason former pets have a hard time is because where there are no people, there’s no thrown-away food to scavenge. As a substitute, the packs of now-wild dogs often attack and eat rats, and even cats.
The former pets are often purebred dogs, and stick out amongst the strays.
Tina Bernard is animal control officer for one New Orleans parish and says owners are still coming in to her shelter trying to find the pets they lost during the chaos of Katrina. She can only describe the situation as “heartbreaking.”
Volunteers like Pam Leavy place food wherever there’s a sighting of strays, but their efforts are often in vein.
“I’ve seen as time goes on, there are less and less dogs out, and it’s not because we’re getting them, it’s because they just weren’t making it,” Pam said.
For more information, contact:
Animal Rescue New Orleans
271 Plauche Street
New Orleans, LA 70123
Voicemail: 504-571-1900www.AnimalRescueNewOrleans.org
(End of Inside Edition web story)
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
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